Classrooms with teachers; clinics with
nurses; running taps and working toilets: for millions of people across
developing countries these things are a distant dream. And yet it is these
vital public services - health, education, water and sanitation- that
are the key to transforming the lives of people living in poverty.

This paper, based on the research and findings, considers how WFP mainstreams gender and offers recommendations on enhancing mainstreaming efforts by WFP and UNHCR in the context of food security and displacement. It provides an overview of WFP's age and gender mainstreaming policies and highlights organizational efforts to implement those policies.

At the beginning of the new millennium,
the world's nations committed to an ambitious, global, development agenda
to fight poverty, disease, environmental degradation, hunger, illiteracy
and the devastating consequences of disasters caused by vulnerability to
natural hazards. The overriding Millennium Development Goals (2000), the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation for Sustainable Development (2002)
and the Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015) provide concrete priorities
for action to meet these challenges.

Steel houses that can be put up
quickly and easily to provide essential shelter for victims of disaster
are a major element of the Turkish Red Crescent disaster preparedness programme.
First used in the aftermath of the Pakistan earthquake in 2005, the houses
have already proved a successful component in helping families in crisis
and are now being stored in at-risk areas across Turkey.

Using the experience of Pakistan, the
Turkish Red Crescent worked on improving and adapting the steel houses
design.